GM Plug-in Reported

Bloomberg reported that GM is developing a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV).

A source, who asked not to be identified, said that mileage will significantly exceed 60 mpg. The car may be ready for the 2007 Detroit Auto Show and production is at least a year away.

That is all the details of the car that the Bloomberg article reported.  Rising gasoline prices and Toyota's increasing market share are obvious reasons to develop a PHEV.  Introducing the first PHEV would help revitalize its sales.  If GM plans come to fruition it would put some urgency into Toyota's PHEV plans. Toyota has said they have no immediate plans because of the battery requirements.

Source: GM Plans Gas-Electric Car to Catch Up to Toyota, People Say, Bloomberg, June 23, 2006

Comments

[George]

Wow, GM lost almost as much($10bn) last year as Toyota made ($12bn)! I guess the Hummers and Escalades aren't working for them any more... Did GM really put all its R&D eggs in the fuel cell basket? If you look at their product line, it doesn't exactly look like a company that's planning to transition to such a power source. IMHO their hydrogen plans are (were) just a smokescreen to cover business as usual as far as the eye can see. The recent upswing in gas prices may have negated that scheme, however. If they can pull off a PHEV, then more power to 'em, I say. I worry, however, that Toyota and various small companies may have tied up a lot of the hybrid and battery intellectual property; GM may not be able to afford what it would cost to buy it, and may not have the time to develop good workarounds for all the patented technology. IMHO, the top half dozen layers of GM management ought to get pink slips for their lack of vision... but at least they are selling employee buyouts like ten cent quarters. Looks like it's true that what would've been good for America (SUVs in the car CAFE regime) would've been good for GM, and vice versa. Probably ought to be a few hundred pink slips for congress, too.

[amazingdrx]

Meanwhile Subaru, owned by Fuji Heavy, leapfrogs GM and Toyota right to electric cars. And GM has a signifigant stake in Fuji.

Maybe Toyota is not rushing PHEVs because they have an electric car to pull out of their hat? That battery excuse from Toyota is patently lame with at least 3 different nano layer, quick charge, lithium ions at or near the manufacturing stage.

Think about it: Why produce a PHEV with thousands of moving parts and an antiquated, 14% efficient internal combustion engine, when one could produce a quick charge plugin electric car with the same performance and range.

That runs on 75 cent per gallon of gas equivalent electric power. And has only on the order of 100s of moving parts.

The profit advantage (before gas prices made a rebate eat those profits up)of trucks and SUVs for ford and GM was based upon this same principle.

Same number of parts in an SUV as in a car, but the SUV sold at a heavy premium because of the larger size. The extra steel did not add to the manufacturing cost, so the Detroit rust belt did ok versus Toyota.

But as gas prices rise, the same phenomenon will kill Detrot. Toyota can produce electric cars with 100s of moving parts, instead of thousands, with a corresponding drop in manufacturing costs, and consumers can save 100s of bucks per month on gas that can go towards the car payments for their new electric cars.

But now, just as Subaru poineered the all wheel drive, SUV like economy car, they are now pionreering the electric car. Honda and Toyota are following suit. Will they miss out on the electric car? Not bluudy lackly (my cockney accent, hehey).

[Golden Boy]

Dr X,

How is all this possible with GM, Subaru, etc. when,as you are forever telling us, the greedy oil companies control our government?

[George]

Dr. X, With a pure electric car, it's all about the battery. The cost of the battery is going to outweigh the cost of a conventional engine, I fear, at least if you want the sort of range that customers will demand (which is probably more than they need). Also, I suspect (but would be happy to be wrong) that GM does not own the IP on any of those trick new Li-ion batteries.

Didn't someone once make an EV with a small stationary gas or diesel engine that only ran a generator? That would seem to get around the range problem without a huge cost or parts count, and by running at optimal speed could be pretty efficient.

[amazingdrx]

"The cost of the battery is going to outweigh the cost of a conventional engine"

But only because the engines are mass produced and the latest batteries have just started to be mass produced.

Remember how the cost of computers came down with mass production?

The basic design of these new lithium ion nano layer batteries is a sheet of metal with various layers deposited on it, then the wgole thing is rolled up to provide a large surface area.

The only moving parts are at the molecular level. Unlike an internal combustion engine with thousands of parts that all need to be manufactured to high tolerances and fit together.

The electric motor running off those batteries has only a few moving parts. No exotic materials like the platinum in a catalytic convertor exhaust system are used in an electric car.

Comparing the two under mass production, electric versus internal combustion, the battery electric system would be a fraction of the cost.

As far as backup power, a fixed speed internal combustion generator attains maybe 20% efficiency versus 14% for a regular auto engine.

A high temperature fuel cell/ microturbine that runs on multiple fuels approaches 75% efficiency. And has no exotic materials and only a few moving parts.

But with nano layer lithium ion batteries in mass production, electric cars that have a 200+mile range and recharge in minutes will be much cheaper to manufacture than internal combustion vehicles.

Detroit is ignoring this technology while Japanese autonmakers are set to mass produce it in low cost manufacturing regions like China. For export to the US.

Supporting the oil friendly policies of this US government/industry internal combustion manufacturing system will leave US in the economic dustbin where that other formerly great colonial empire, the UK, now resides.

Like it or not that is the reality of this current political climate in the US.

[amazingdrx]

"How is all this possible..."

You tell me. It IS happening. Denial ain't a river in Egypt.

[Guy]

And for every one of those nano-lithium batteries, a royalty check will be written to a US technology firm. GM isn't the US economy, and hasn't been for a long time. It isn't called the Rust Belt for nothing.

[amazingdrx]

Well actually Hitachi makes the Subaru battery I think?

A123 (an MIT spinoff)is supposed to be supplying DeWalt's new power tool line. And powering Altairno's new electric car.

But DeWalt has been saying it's bew system is coming soon for a long time now.

I think Subaru is the only hope for electric cars now. Can they force Toyota and Honda to buck the powers holding back electric cars? Maybe so.

[amazingdrx]

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/6/26/172718/341

Here's a great "Grist" interview with the guys who made the movie all about who killed the EV-1.

[Thomas]

I can't help but wonder what's so expensive about batteries..? Maybe it's purity of the materials? Maybe they need clean-rooms (while well running gasoline engines are built in very dirty places).

Anyway, I can't help but think along the same lines as amazingdrx. Maybe cancelling the engine, along with all the auxiliaries, doesn't save money to buy a lot of battery power, but it saves weight!

The weight of batteries can be integrated in the structure much more efficiently in terms of weight distribution and improve safety and handling at the same time (like the GM Hy-Wire fuel cell concept with everything concerning the drive train under a flat floor). That saves even more weight and makes possible a more efficient usage of the volume of the car.

Maybe (real-world-drivable) EVs will offer enough added value (less noise, good acceleration, ultra-low per-mile running cost) that people don't mind stopping 5 minutes to re-charge every 150 miles? After all, how often do you *have to* drive further without a break.

Or how about this: The next time your family needs to replace one of your cars (assuming that you have more than one car) you get an EV for all the job cummuting and shopping, and keep the SUV for holidays, trips to grandma, etc. If you have more than one car at your disposal, the range of an EV becomes much less of an issue. My guess is that there's a pretty large demographic as described above.

They buyers of EVs, Priusses, etc. can't all be single people... - although their activity on blogs like this suggests otherwise ;-)

[amazingdrx]

Well Thomas I found an explanation of the manufacturing process for these new batteries. Sheet metal is rolled out on a line then sprayed with various coatings that are then baked on.

Then the sheet is rolled up for maximum surface area in the smallest space. Nothing exotic in these batteries either. The nano layer materials are made in a separate process then sprayed on just as the other materials.

The nano layer provides a low resistance, high current flow because a uniform very thin layer is possible to prevent arcing within the battery.

It appears that only mass production is lacking to bring the cost down, just as with solar cells.

Think of this process of mass production of batteries and solar panels in this effort to stop global climate change and oil wars versus the Manhattan Project during WW 2.

The technical difficulties and danger involved in the atom bomb project were orders of magnitude more challenging. And yet we still don't have the will or leadership to win this time around.

As Al Gore said, even a nuclear war would leave most of this planet inhabitable, people still live in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

But how can civilization withstand the weather volatility in evidence right now. The cleanup and economic losses will mount into the 100s of trillions very quickly as more violent storms bring flooding and drought conditions bring on catastrophic crop failure and fires.

And how do you move whole cities back from flooding coastlines? Wouldn't mass producing these renewable energy systems be much less expensive? And at the same time revive the flagging US manufacturing sector and restore the tax base?

As with the internet boom, this renewable energy boom would start to pay down the deficit and the national debt. The internet boom went bust, not everyone needed or wanted to use the net.

This energy boom will be different, decades long, powered by productivity gains built into every economic sector underlying all industrial activity.

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That runs on 75 cent per gallon of gas equivalent electric power. And has only on the order of 100s of moving parts.

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At the beginning of the 21st century, increased concern over the environmental impact of the petroleum-based transportation infrastructure, along with the spectre of peak oil, led to renewed interest in an electric transportation infrastructure. As such, vehicles which can potentially be powered by renewable energy sources, such as hybrid electric vehicles or pure electric vehicles, are becoming more popular.

[Casual Shoes]

Maybe Toyota is not rushing PHEVs because they have an electric car to pull out of their hat? That battery excuse from Toyota is patently lame with at least 3 different nano layer, quick charge, lithium ions at or near the manufacturing stage.